Marce Lacouture, David Greely, and Kristi Guillory performed French songs of Louisiana at a concert at the Library of Congress in 2010. In addition to providing entertainment, such new ballads became a means of spreading news, gossip, and political commentary of the day. Lloyd Price's 1958 recording of the African American ballad "Stagger Lee" was just one version of this song to become a rhythm and blues hit. But the ballad preserves the attitude of a particular era, which painted the American Indians as the enemy regardless of their treaty rights, a situation worth reflecting upon. Similarly, "The Death of Queen Jane," sung for the Library's Archive of Folk Song by Bascom Lamar Lunsford in 1949, recounts the story of the birth of King Edward VI of England, and the death in childbirth of his mother, Jane Seymour, third wife of Henry VIII. Songs make us feel through rhythm and melody, but they stay with us thanks to the familiar patterns that comprise song structure. The ballad is one of the oldest poetic forms in English. On his 1967 album "John Wesley Harding," Bob Dylan intended to invoke ballads of the frontier, while singing narrative songs in his own style. Enraptured I Gaze 16. Folk ballads also told love stories both tragic and happy, tales of religion and the supernatural, and recountings of historical events. The database offers a variety of information about each song, including a brief description, a bibliography, and historical background. The Foggy, Foggy Dew 18. The ballad created a legend of an engineer who gave his life for the passengers and crew. Traditional songs such as Green grow the rushes, O present religious lore in a mnemonic form, as do Western Christmas carols and similar traditional songs. The ballad's combination of narrative propulsion implied melody (ballads are often and very naturally set to music), and archetypal stories are irresistible. They can be reminiscent of stories in the tabloid press today, intending to persuade, shock, or amaze with tales of murders, disasters, and extraordinary events. For example, "Custer's Last Charge," sung by Warde Ford, is about the Battle of the Little Bighorn, which was a conflict between the United States Army Seventh Cavalry Regiment and a much larger confederation of Lakota, Northern Cheyenne, and Arapaho. Note: In some cases, more than one year is provided because of notable re-recordings of the song by the same artist. The Library of Congress Celebrates the Songs of America, Broadside of Revolutionary War period: Tea Destroyed by Indians, "Britania's Disgrace," and a lyric song, "Lamentation of Lady Washington. Murder ballads often appeared on song sheets and broadsides, including such obscure pieces as "The Thirtieth Street murder.". "The Cumberland's Crew" tells of conflict between the sloop USS Cumberland and the ironclad Confederate ship CSS Virginia, which had been constructed out of the hull of a raised Union ship, the USS Merrimack (also spelled "Merrimac"). (Hampton Roads is a strategic shipping lane at the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay, off the shore of Virginia.) A Spectre is Haunting Europe (1936) An Old Bush Song (1860s) Australian Folk Songs (1976) Bagman's Ballad (1931) A Ballad of Bernie's Stall (1940) A Ballad of the Road (1931) A Ballad of Broken Hill (1892) A Ballad of Sydney (1930) The Ballad of the Bounding Bishop (1922) The Ballad of The Bricklayers Daughter (1922) Aboriginals on Strike (1892) Some versions name "Vanderbilt's daughter" as a passenger saved by Jones, which is an embellishment to add to his heroism. The folksong revival of the 1940s, and the later revival of the 1950s through the 1970s, led to new interest in narrative songs. "Six ans sur mer" (Six Years at Sea), sung by Elita, Mary, and Ella Hoffpauir of New Iberia, Louisiana, is a ballad with a widespread international distribution. Old MacDonald had a farm. (Traditional) - … Should you need a print-out of the song, PDF versions (without banners or adverts) are available from the link at the bottom of each song page. "Corrido villésta de la toma de Matamoros," is a song from the Mexican Revolution describing the siege of Matamoros, which is across the Rio Grande from Brownsville, in 1913. Walker was the uncle of ballad singers Warde, Pat, and Bogue Ford. Such a sheet was called a broadside or song sheet. Some early ballads from this tradition traveled to North America with the first European settlers. "Traditional" is defined as encompassing all pre-rock styles of popular music; Christmas songs include both religious and secular songs as well as songs about winter which are associated with the festive season. Other ballads combine the four lines into two, forming rhymed couplets of seven-stress lines that are sometimes called “fourteeners.” But the word “ballad” refers to a general type of poem, not necessarily a fixed poetic form, and many ballad poems take liberties with the ballad stanza or abandon it altogether. This version is one that Lacouture learned from a ballad singer in New Orleans, Louisiana. An occupational ballad sung by James H. Gibbs, who learned it as a boy on Nantucket, and who also spent time working as a whaler in his youth. [2] "Britania's Disgrace" is a song about the battles to secure strategic ports in New York and New Jersey. The Bird Song 7. While retaining recognizable European roots, they developed in ways that reflect the regional differences in songs of the United States. Jones was the only fatality in the crash, having told his fireman, Simeon T. Webb, to jump before the impact. Contents - 1103 Songs and Poems. Early ballads, which in English date to before 1600, may also be derived from other medieval sources, including metrical romances, folk tales, and apocryphal gospels about the life of Jesus. "The Avondale Mine Disaster," sung by John J. Quinn in 1947, tells the story of the fire at Avondale Colliery near Plymouth, Pennsylvania, United States on September 6, 1869, which took the lives of approximately 110 men and boys. He returns to Louisiana and sells his horse Henry to pay for her treatment. For more on this, see the essay, "Francis James Child and The English and Scottish Popular Ballads.". Most ballads are structured in short stanzas, often the quatrain form that has come to be known as “ballad measure”—alternating lines of iambic tetrameter (four stressed beats, da DUM da DUM da DUM da DUM) and iambic trimeter (three stressed beats, da DUM da DUM da DUM), rhyming the second and fourth lines of each stanza. This song derives from an English ballad known as "The Cruel Ship's Carpenter." One of the earliest known ballads composed in the American colonies is "Springfield Mountain," a song about the death by snakebite of Timothy Merrick in Wilbraham, Massachusetts in 1761. A Soldier and a Sailor 3. Traditional folk ballads began with the anonymous wandering minstrels of the Middle Ages, who handed down stories and legends in these poem-songs, using a structure of stanzas and repeated refrains to remember, retell, and embellish local tales. The song tells the story of young William who, as he lies on his deathbed, calls out for Barbara. It is also a record of the Traditional Song Forum’s activity since it was founded in 1998. "The Bombardment of Bristol," here sung by Sam Hinton, tells of the bombing of Bristol, Rhode Island by a British ship during the American Revolution in 1775. 3. Many traditional ballads came to North America with settlers from Europe. On the other hand, some ballads celebrated anti-heroes, especially outlaws and criminals. Ballads carry tales of tragic romance (Edgar Allan Poe’s “Annabel Lee”), of the honor of warriors (Rudyard Kipling’s “The Ballad of East and West”), of the despair of poverty (William Butler Yeats’ “The Ballad of Moll Magee”), of the secrets of brewing (Robert Louis Stevenson’s “Heather Ale: A Galloway Legend”), and of conversations across the divide between life and death (Thomas Hardy’s “Her Immortality”). Such historical ballads also entered oral tradition, where they were passed on by word of mouth until modern times. Eastern European ballads often show a relationship with the epic tradition. Come Here, Fellow Servant 12. This movement entered the mainstream in the late 1950s, when singers performed ballads with both acoustic and electric arrangements. They might tell a sad story, as "Sam Bass," here sung by E. A. Briggs in 1939, or they might be entertaining and humorous, as is the ballad of the "Zebra Dun," sung by Frank Goodwyn in 1939. In the song John Henry pits himself against a steam-powered drilling machine and wins, but dies in the effort. Logging also gave rise to ballads, which were sung as entertainment in the camps and shanties where lumberjacks lived. A ballad is simply a narrative poem or song, and there are many variations on balladry. Ruthless criminals might be treated as "Robin Hoods." Lyrics by Sam C. Dunham, 1901. A ballad is a form of verse, often a narrative set to music. Katy Cruel 21. An old lady who swallowed a fly. Ballads were particularly characteristic of the popular poetry and song of Britain and Ireland from the later medieval period until the 19th century. (Bristol was bombed again in 1778.) Some murder ballads were based on British originals, such as "Pretty Polly," which was sung for the Library of Congress by Pete Steele of Hamilton, Ohio, in 1938. 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